Cheater
by TrulyScrumptious103
Summary: They've been married for a year. Is there trouble in paradise?


A/N: New story! Only a one-shot. It's a continuation of the Set Yourself on Fire Universe with a slight modification. Trigger warning about miscarriage. Nothing graphic but general feelings and discussion. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

I stared at the computer screen, blue light making my eyes hurt, and the headline on TMZ making my heart hurt. "Is Logan Huntzberger back on the market?" accompanied by a grainy photo of his hand on the small of some blonde's back. I knew it was a recent photo because I bought the jacket he was wearing just a week ago. The jacket I recognized. The blonde, not so much.

I tried his phone again. It went right to voicemail. Today is our one-year wedding anniversary and I'm sitting alone in our New York City home while he's in California with a blonde I don't recognize. Now, the weight of every single stupid thing that I have tried to ignore has come rushing back to me, hitting me like a linebacker in the middle of a tackle.

It started a year ago when I got pregnant on our honeymoon. I'll never forget the terror I felt when we took the test in Kathmandu, Nepal. It was positive and I was a wreck. Logan was calm and collected. "So we're starting a family a little earlier than we wanted. No big deal," he assured me. "I love you and I love this baby and I can't wait to see you with our child."

We kept the news to ourselves and a few close people, like my mom and Honor, so when I miscarried at 3 months and 2 days, we didn't have a ton of people that we needed to let in on our grief. We started trying again as soon as we could, but it just hasn't happened yet. It's been 11 months, and I have yet to conceive. The doctor said these things take time. He told us to keep to a schedule and gave me some dietary modifications. I've followed the doctor's orders religiously, wanting to recreate the happiness that we had in the first few months when we were newly married and expecting.

A few months after my miscarriage, I attended the DAR Fall Ball and sat with a table of older women who decided I needed advice on how to survive the first year of marriage. The advice ranged from the cliché (don't go to bed angry) to the absurd (make sure you stay under 105 pounds so he can brag about you to his friends). One piece of advice struck a nerve for some reason. Mrs. Peabody said that the secret to a happy society marriage was giving your husband their heir within the first year of your marriage. After casually mentioning this advice to Honor and Grandma and having them agree with it, I started to panic and stepped up my efforts. Now, I controlled Logan's diet as well as my own, made sure he was wearing the right underwear and controlled the temperature of our house. In addition, I made sure that he saved his sperm for procreating.

It doesn't help that I know something is happening with him, and he's not telling me anything. With each passing month that yielded a negative pregnancy test, Logan grew more and more distant. He was spending more time in California than ever before. He was distracted all the time, and when he was with me he was glued to his phone. Even our sex life has suffered. Granted, we were still doing it based on the schedule I formulated to coincide with my ovulation, but his heart didn't seem to be in it anymore. He didn't hold me afterward or laugh with me; he just rolled over and went to sleep.

Then last week hit. Logan was packing for yet another business trip. I found him standing in the closet, selecting ties that would match his shirts. He didn't acknowledge me, so I decided to speak first.

"According to the ovulation tracker, tomorrow is the peak, but I'm fertile now. Should we make love before you go?" I asked, hopeful that this would be the time.

He sighed deeply. "I think we need to stop trying, Rory. It's obviously not working and honestly, it's become more of a hassle than it's worth."

I felt like he had sucker punched me. "Oh. Okay. If that's what you want," I whispered, turning on my heel and leaving the bedroom. I walked downstairs and made myself some tea...coffee was on the not approved food list. When had I become this person? Weren't we the couple who could talk about anything? I knew I was letting him be distant and I wasn't asking the questions because honestly, I was afraid I might not like his answers.

As I stirred the teabag into the water, he came downstairs and kissed me on the cheek. "I should be home before our anniversary, and we'll do something fun then," he assured me. But I couldn't help but notice that he didn't say goodbye or kiss me on the lips the way he used to.

Today was going to be different. It was our anniversary! Was there a better time to reconnect with one's husband? I was working against a deadline for work when my phone buzzed on the table. I was excited to see Logan's name pop up on the screen. We really hadn't spoken since he left and that was almost a week ago. Tonight, our anniversary would account for so much more than just a celebration of the first year of our marriage. When he arrived home in a few hours, I was going to make him talk to me. I was going to do my best to get us back on the footing we had a year ago, hell, even 4 months ago. I had given myself a major pep talk and I was going to bring it up with him; the distance, the baby (or lack thereof) and my fears. If I couldn't talk to my husband about this stuff, who could I talk to about it?

"Hey there," I answered. "Are you on your way home?"

"About that, Ace. I'm not going to make it. We have some meetings scheduled for the next few days that I can't get out of. I know I said we'd go out, but can we raincheck?"

My eyes welled up. Now he was missing our anniversary? I tried not to show emotion in my voice when I responded. "You really can't get out of the meetings? This is kind of an important day for us Logan."

"Jesus, Rory. I'm trying the best I can. I'll make it up to you, I promise. I'm going to a boring business meeting tonight. I really do wish I was home with you instead."

"Ok," I replied. "I guess we can celebrate later."

The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur. I finished my article and submitted it. Around 4, I got a delivery with a dozen red roses. The card was about as impersonal as you could get. Three words: "Love you, Logan." I got take out and was reading a book while the TV played softly in the background. Some stupid celebrity gossip show I didn't care about. I grabbed for the remote and looked to the TV to turn down the volume when I saw a picture of my husband on the screen. My husband, coming out of a nightclub, with another woman. Rather than turning down the volume, I turned it up. Apparently, the photo and video had been taken last night, 2am California time, outside of Club LaMar.

The world started to spin. I managed to stay upright held only by the knife I felt was in my heart. It was a physical pain I felt in my sternum. Kind of like adrenaline and fear were mixing to make me sick to my stomach. He wouldn't do this to me, would he? I know I've been demanding lately, but it was because we wanted a baby together, right? What did I do to deserve this level of betrayal? Who the hell does he think he is?

I grabbed my computer and went to the website of the gossip show. His story was the first.

I called him, determined to get to the bottom if it but the call went straight to voicemail. I continued to read.

 _Logan Huntzberger was seen in LA last night, looking super cozy with someone who isn't his wife, Rory. Logan, seen leaving Club LaMer at 2am was with Colleen Jespar, the widow of Carl Jespar who tragically died several years ago from cancer. Carl was one of the first investors in Huntzberger's company Tome, and Colleen is still a major investor. Although Logan and wife Rory were last year's #RelationshipGoals, has the young Huntzberger moved on to a newer model?_

I called again. And again. I don't know how much time passed before my phone finally rang. His name and face flashed across my screen. My stomach in knots, I slid to answer.

"Hello?" I choke out.

"Hey, I'm about to step back into a meeting but I saw you called a few times. Everything ok?" he asks.

Is he kidding? My anger flared and before I could rein it in, I let loose.

"Everything ok? No, Logan. Everything is not ok. I'm here, missing you, bummed that we can't celebrate our first anniversary together, and you're in Los Angeles, a place that is not San Francisco, partying with some blonde," I all but yelled into the phone.

"Wait, wait, how did you know…" he started.

"It's all over fucking TMZ Logan! They're wondering what happened to your wife."

"Ace, I can explain."

"I don't want your fucking explanations," I growled into the phone. "The time for explanations was three months ago. Now, I just want, well, I don't know. But this? What our relationship has turned into? I don't want that." I ended the call before he could speak, unwilling to hear his excuses. Then, the utter exhaustion hit me. I switched off my phone and headed upstairs to bed. The only way to ride out a scandal of this proportion was to sleep through it. For the second time in less than 24 hours, I cried myself to sleep.

The dip of the mattress pulled me from my sleep. Half-awake, I lifted my head to see Logan crawling in next to me. He kissed my head. "Go back to sleep, Ace. We'll talk in the morning" he told me. I snuggled back into the blanket and felt his arms around me. There was something I was upset about but I couldn't remember it right now. Sleep overtook me.

The next time I awoke, sunlight was streaming through the curtains. His side of the bed was empty but had definitely been slept in. I wasn't sure how I wanted to handle this. I sat up and cleared the sleep from my eyes, but before I could get too far, Logan walked into the room carrying two steaming mugs of coffee.

"Good morning," he said cheerfully as he handed me one of the mugs. "I figured if we were going to go 12 rounds, we both needed to be caffeinated."

I took the time to take a sip of the steaming liquid and formulate my thoughts while he crawled back into bed. Neither of us spoke, waiting for the coffee to seep into our bodies and clear the grogginess from our brains.

I turned my head and looked at him. "Why did you come?" I asked quietly.

Logan laughed humorlessly. "You called me on our anniversary about ready to tear my balls off. I figured this was a conversation we needed to have in person."

I didn't know where to start so I waited for him to speak. It took a minute but he set his coffee down on the bedside table and turned to me.

"She's a friend, nothing more," he said, eyes pleading with me to believe him. "I know how bad it looks but everything was taken out of context, I swear. She's an investor. Her name is Colleen Jespar. Her late husband, Matthew Jespar, was a prodigy, made his first million by the age of 18. He was friends with Roger and Paul at Stanford and was one of our first investors. Three years ago, he died of brain cancer but Colleen remains one of our biggest backers. She lives in LA now, and once a year, we take her to dinner. It's the only night of the year that she allows herself to cut loose a little. Last night, she wanted to go to a club, so we took her. Roger and Paul were there too, I promise. What that picture doesn't show is that they were two steps behind us. I can call them right now if you need me to."

Strangely, I did believe him, but I was still hurt. Hurt that we had gotten to the point that I didn't even know he was in another city. But how could I tell him this without feeling like I was being irrational?

"I should have told you," he continued. "I would have, but I honestly didn't think about it. We were supposed to have a dinner meeting with someone else. They canceled last minute so we called her. We took the plane down, were there for about 6 hours, and got home super early Saturday morning. To be honest, most of the time we were there, you were asleep, but I still should have told you. I've been so wrapped up in my own universe lately, I can't see three inches in front of me."

I started crying. Silent tears running down my face. That's what it felt like; he wasn't seeing anything around him and it was hurting me. He responded by pulling me into his arms. I took comfort from his strength, but I also could no longer ignore the fact that this was the end. We could no longer tiptoe around this chasm that was between us.

Logan stroked my hair and kissed my head. "What are you thinking, Ace?" he asked.

I shook my head, not knowing where to start and feeling too self-conscious to admit my fears. He pulled back and looked into my eyes. "Ok, I'm enacting a new decree in our marriage," he said. "This bed is a safe space for us. A place where we can share anything without judgment from the other. It's a place where we can just be Rory and Logan, without the outside world. So please, Rory, tell me what's on your mind."

"Are you leaving me?" I asked with a hiccup.

"What?!" he exclaimed. "No way. Where did you get that idea?"

Once I started with the reasons, I couldn't stop. "You're always gone, you don't want to have a baby anymore, you don't want to have sex anymore, when you're here you are distant, we haven't talked in two months…."

He pulled me against him and held me tightly. "I really let it get out of hand," he muttered, more to himself than me. After a minute, he answered. "No, Rory, I'm not leaving. You're the only thing tethering me to reality right now."

He certainly had a funny way of showing it. His words didn't make sense, but I knew he would continue when he was ready. I waited until he spoke.

"We're being sued," he finally spoke. "Tome is."

My heart sunk, knowing how much stress that would put on him. I squeezed him a little tighter and allowed him to continue.

"Another company is suing us for copyright infringement on a patent they filed the same day we did. The problem is, they have deep pockets, and the power to make this fight last for years if they wanted. I'm honestly scared. I'm scared we're going to lose everything and I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to keep that from happening."

"Why didn't you tell me this?" I asked, my heart breaking that he had been carrying this burden himself.

Logan shrugged, seemingly unsure of the answer. "I didn't want to worry you, maybe. I didn't know what to say. I don't have a way out of it yet, and I didn't want to come to you without a solution."

My head started racing. This meant he had been dealing with this every time he left the house for the last two months. I verbalized my thoughts. "So every time you've been gone…" I began.

"I've been meeting with lawyers or our design team," he finished.

"And I guess that explains why you're always on your phone."

He nodded.

Well, that answered one of my questions. I still had a few more though.

"Why don't you want a baby with me anymore?" I clumsily asked, knowing there was no other way to segue. "Because the women at the DAR said that I needed to give you a baby by our first anniversary or you would lose interest. And then the other day you said you didn't want to have a baby with me anymore."

"I want a baby with you," Logan responded. "Geez, how did I screw this up so badly? I do want a baby with you, but we've been so focused on making a baby that it's not fun anymore. Every month we don't get pregnant, it breaks your heart, which breaks my heart. With everything else going on, I couldn't take that anymore, the disappointment on your face when you took the pregnancy test. And our sex life is on such a schedule. I don't want that for us. I want us to enjoy making love to each other because it connects us. Not only for the end result of a baby."

"I have been really focused on the baby part," I agreed. "I wanted to be pregnant before our anniversary so you wouldn't be disappointed."

Logan kissed the top of my head and tucked me under his chin. "I'm not disappointed with you, or us," he insisted. "I just don't want us to be so focused on that right now. I have a lot going on, and let's be honest, we both know that once we have a baby, it's going to strongly impact your work life unless we get a nanny, which we both have discussed we don't want. If you tell me right now that you want nothing other than a baby, we'll make that happen, but Ace, you've always wanted to be an international correspondent and I think you should have every chance to fulfill your dreams before we start thinking about bringing kids into the mix. We're young. We have time."

He was right. I was so focused on how a baby would fix our marriage I wasn't thinking about what I actually wanted. I did want to focus on my career for a bit and I knew having a baby would change that. He sensed my silent agreement and we stayed like that, content to be with each other in the clear air for a bit. Then suddenly he moved to get off the bed.

"Come on. I know it's still kind of early, but I have an idea," he exclaimed, jumping up and throwing me some clean clothes.

* * *

I looked up at the big grey building.

"You're joking, right?" I asked.

"Nope. I think this is a great idea," he assured me. Let's just go look. We'll see if anything catches our eye. Besides, I didn't get you a real anniversary present. This is how I can make up for that."

He put his arms on my hips and pulled me close. "I know it's not a baby," he said. "And I know that the majority of the responsibility of a pet will fall on you when I'm not here, so if you don't want to, tell me. But a dog or cat will help make the house not feel as empty when I'm not there. And when I am, well, it's something else for us to love and to love us."

His enthusiasm overrode my apprehension as he grabbed my hand and led me through the glass doors. Inside, a cacophony of barking assaulted my ears while the faint smell of dog filled my nostrils.

A woman at the front counter greeted us and when we told her what we were looking for, she led us back to a hallway that was lined with cages. The barking got louder and it echoed off of the cinderblock walls. As we walked by, dogs jumped up on their cage doors to greet us, excited for an opportunity to be adopted. One particular dog caught my eye. Rather than exuberant and jumpy, she was timid, cowering behind her bed. I broke free from Logan's hand and knelt down.

"Hi there, sweetheart. What's your name?" I asked as I stuck my fingers through the chain link in the door. She looked at me with huge, sad eyes, and then looked away, as if she was afraid to meet my eye. After a minute, she slowly shuffled to the door and sniffed my fingers. Logan crouched down next to me and put his hand up for her to sniff. She licked his fingers which made him laugh.

"This is Austen, named after Jane Austen. She's a girl, even though she has a more traditionally masculine name. She's 4 years old and was surrendered to us about 6 months ago after her family was evicted. We think she's had some form of abuse in the past because she's extremely timid with new people but once she warms up, she's sweet and gentle and loves being near her people. The noise of the other dogs seems to scare her, so when people come by to check out our animals, she gets really scared. We've found that when she gets really frightened, she calms down by being read to."

I turned my head and looked at Logan. He was already looking at me.

"We'll take her," he said.

* * *

 **Epilogue**

"Ace, are you here?" Logan yelled up the steps.

I was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on dinner. "Up here!" I yelled back.

Seconds later, he came flying into the kitchen. I turned to greet him and almost tripped on Austen. She always liked to be underfoot when I was cooking. Logan caught me before I could faceplant into the kitchen island and he kissed me.

"They dropped it," he exclaimed after we had thoroughly said hello with our mouths. "Data Industries dropped the lawsuit. They conceded and let us have our patent!" His enthusiasm was infectious.

"That's amazing news," I exclaimed, hugging him tightly. "So it's over? You don't have to worry about them anymore?"

"It's over," he said, releasing me and kneeling down to scratch a patiently waiting Austen behind the ears. Although she loved both of us, she especially loved when Logan was around. I told him it was because she got to see me every day and got bored of me. He liked to tease that she loved him more because he made the decision to get her. I knew it was just because he fed her treats when I wasn't looking.

"After dinner," he started, "you, Austen and I are going to go out for ice cream. Now I can finally stay at home for longer than just a few days. You're not going to be able to get rid of me now."

Smiling, I turned back to the pot on the burner. And to think I had been so worried that he didn't love me anymore.


End file.
